Final Three
by arhangle
Summary: Things go wrong. Nathaniel passes through the Gate to the Other Place to find Bartimaeus,while Kitty tackles the mercenary instead.Set during PG,during Nouda/Makepeace. A What-Could-Have-Happened fic.
1. Chapter 1

Do read the Author's note, at least the first few parts -- you'd probably be confused without it.

**Author's note: I've been debating whether to put this up or not for quite a while now. For a start, there's a lot of focus on the relationship - not YAOI, by the way - between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, especially in the third chapter. I hope no one comments on the fluff and angst, but if you do then feel free to waste your time - I accept constructive criticism on language and handling of plot, but I firmly believe that it is an author's right to write things as they please, as long as it doesn't stretch the suitability of the fanfiction; because that's what fanfictions are for. There's also indistinct hints of NatKitty, if you knew where to look; though I've kept it to a bare minimum, following the tradition of . You'll probably recognize a few similar words from Ptolemy's Gate and Amulet of Samarkand.**

**Overall, I suggest you _do_ read it as it might just make you think twice about the ending of the Bartimaeus Trilogy. The titile will be explained in chapter 5, but I understand some of you can't wait that long for what seems like a boring fanfiction, which is why I wanted to put the whole thing in at once -- except I didn't.. Obviously, things are pretty screwed up to start with: Just in case some of you didn't pick it up from the synopsis, in this fanfic it's NATHANIEL who goes to the Other Place to find Bartimaeus, while Kitty gets the Staff. It's in lieu of what I had rather expected to happen before I read Ptolemy's Gate (Stroud's devious mind twists us all) and it's also for those readers who complain that they prefer Nathaniel's POV than Kitty's, and so did not concentrate on the part when Kitty goes to the Other Place (thank you Dragonxxxxx).If it's not clear yet, this part starts somewhere around Chapter 27, page 380, where according to Stroud's _original _version Kitty prepares herself to enter the Other Place. I _do_ apologize for many uses of similar words and suchlike, but it was necessary as there is a lot of foreshadowing and character depths there alone. I also know that it's rather detailed and too book-like for a fanfiction, but that's how I write. And while I'm at this, I might also warn you that any upcoming fanfiction of mine that isn't a oneshot will probably be in a similar fashion.**

**Read and review. Flames are not _exactly_ welcome with open arms (see previous statement) but as long as it's reasonable I'll accept it as constructive critisms. Judge, but don't be rash -- take into account that this my first _recorded_ fanfiction ( you know, finished, drafted, edited, written on paper ). Before you get confused, In Memory was written on the spur of the moment; no edits, no beta (I don't even have one), didn't generate many reviews, though. Maybe it was overlooked by the new bout of updates in Fanfiction (good progress, by the way) or maybe people just didn't like it. If you haven't read it,please check it out -- then review if you have the time.**

**Disclaimer : I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy. As if that wasn't glaringly obvious.**

**Oh, by the way, koinu42, thanks for the prompt on new stories. I might never have posted this if it wasn't for that. For the record, your story is going great.**

Nathaniel shut the door.

Noises from the Hall of Statues reached his ears, slightly muffled but loud: he could hear the commotion even down the corridor and through the heavy wood. He remained still for a time, ear pressed against the door, eyes closed. He took deep, calming breaths, the previous moments replaying itself in his mind.

_The body in the golden chair moved. It was surrounded by a nimbus of pale fire. Energies crackled from its fingers; its eyes were silver notches in the darkened face. One hand was outstretched. The power that came from it – arcing out in five looping bolts, one from each finger – made statues fall and mortar tumble from the ceiling. Quentin Makepeace's body floated; Nouda sent three random bolts: two plunged harmlessly into the floor; one struck Whitwell's Shield, breaking it into shards and killing her instantly._

_The fourth bolt burst the floor at the mercenary's feet: he was blown one way, Kitty Jones the other._

_Nathaniel was on his feet. 'Kitty!'_

_His voice was drowned out by assorted howls, roars, bays and trumpetings from the demons in the hall. Confused and panic-stricken, they willed their human carriers in every direction, legs working oddly, knees too high, elbows out. They collided with each other, let fly random Detonations and Infernos. Among them stumbled a few magicians who had yet to be processed, arms still tied, mouths gagged, eyes wide and staring. The room was filled with smoke, lights and rushing forms._

_Amid the tumult, Nathaniel reached the place where Kitty Jones had fallen. She was on the floor, picking herself up. She looked up and spotted him; her eyes widened and she cried, 'Nathaniel, go!'_

_The mercenary appeared as though out of nowhere, grabbing his arms. Kitty gave a cry of rage and ran forward, knocking him out of the mercenary's grasp. In moments the mercenary was on his feet, trying to trap a desperately wriggling Kitty. She yelled at him, 'Go to the Other Place, Nathaniel! Go to Bartimaeus!'_

_Nathaniel understood all too well what she was saying. There was no future in him staying here; he was a magician and would be destroyed as soon as this tumult was over. She still had a chance; it was she who would have to go after the Staff, he, meanwhile, would have to take his chances with Bartimaeus. But he was reluctant to leave her…_

_She seemed to sense his thoughts. 'Go! I'll be fine!'_

_Nathaniel hesitated, and then raised his hand. An Inferno struck the floor tile at the mercenary's feet; yet again he was blown sideways. Uninventive maybe, yet that was all he had. He ducked between two flailing demons and made for a side-door. Pausing at the ornately carved archway he looked around: Kitty stood at the other end of the hall, right beside the double doors. They caught each other's eye; a thought flitted between them, clear and comprehensive as though she had spoken herself._

Go to Bartimaeus. You owe him.

_In the next moment she had disappeared._

His eyes snapped open. Kitty had told him to go; he had no conscious desire to fail her. He would obey her, and go after Bartimaeus. He would cross Ptolemy's Gate. More than anything else he wanted to see Bartimaeus; to fill his overwhelming desire to talk to the djinni. There was so much that the both of them needed to explain, so much that they needed to understand…

He turned to face the room. Someone's office, sparsely furnished. A bookcase ran along one wall; opposite was a desk piled high with papers. And, crucially, in the near corner, scuffed and scoured with many years if bureaucratic use – two circles, two pentacles.

Nathaniel only needed one.

The pentacle's design was relatively simple and not particularly large. Elsewhere he found the usual magician's accessories, gathered in the drawers of the desk. Chalks, pens, paper, candle stubs, lighters, jar of assorted herbs. The herbs were what he needed. He extracted them and set them on the floor beside the outermost circle.

Next…a conventional pentacle. No candles required. Yes, this one was fine.

But his body should be protected – and that meant herbs and iron. He emptied out the rosemary, St John's wort and sticks of Rowan wood, mixed them together and separated the results into several rough piles, which he placed at equal intervals along the pentacle. As for the iron, _that _was more tricky. He cast his eyes about the room. Nothing. He'd have to do without it.

What else?... He had read something about breaking the circle as a symbolic act to allow the magician to return to his body, he was sure of it. Very well, that could be done. He bent down and scored a gash in the painted circle. He ignored the bleeding. The pentacle would be useless now, but that was not the foremost problem in his mind.

He stood. Finished. No other physical preparations were necessary.

Except… the small matter of his comfort. On the chair behind the desk he discovered a dirty old cushion, much used and battered, and this he placed in the pentacle as a pillow.

A mirror hung on the wall behind the desk; as he returned from the door, he caught sight of himself in passing. Only then did he pause.

It had been a while since Nathaniel had last looked at his face; he could not remember the last time. There he was: the dark hair, dark eyes, the thin lips, the red pigment of dried blood on his chin a stark contrast with his pale skin. His eyes, which had once burned brightly with emotion and intelligence a few years ago, were little more than two lifeless points, the being underneath barely discernible. Less than a few days ago he had been Mandrake, a phony egomaniac who had blotted out his own self, simply in the effort of trying to survive with his power and position. He was not proud of what he had done, and he knew he would have to face the consequences with himself, sooner or later. He planned to change his ways, but he would have to deal with surviving tonight, first of all. Everything could wait, until then.

With a curse, Nathaniel turned from the mirror. If he wanted to survive, he would have to concentrate on the task at hand. In truth, he had no idea how it could help to enter the Other Place, but he did not much care. His desire to set things right with the djinni paled everything in comparison. He'd take Kitty's belief at her word, and trust her that things would work out. Funny, really, the way he used to watch his back around her and end up trusting her with his life…

As he moved, he caught sight of his right hand. He lifted it up to get a better look in the poor lighting. It was bloodied, and the fingernails were cracked, but otherwise it was fine. Still normal, still human. But if he succeeded in what he planned? Terrible things had happened to magicians who tried to follow this course. Nathaniel couldn't be sure, but dark hints of madness and deformity had been given about the fates of those magicians. Ptolemaeus himself had not survived for long after the Gate's creation. And if he was right, he had heard that—

A book fell quietly in the bookcase. It was a small sound, but in the silence of the room it sounded particularly alarming. Nathaniel jumped, then mentally scolded himself. He did not have forever, so he would have to stop bemoaning his fate and proceed. Whatever risk he ran was immaterial compared to what was going on nearby. He had resolved to do it, and that was the end of it. There was nothing more he could do. Doubts and questions would achieve nothing now. It was either to continue or stop, and the latter was out of the question. So.

So there was nothing left for him to do but to lie within the pentacle.

-

The floor was hard, but the cushion felt pleasant against the back of his head. Herb scents filled his nostrils. He closed his fist. A deep breath—

An after thought struck him. Nathaniel raised his head, looked along his body, and to his annoyance discovered an awkward fact. He was too long for the circle – his feet stuck out slightly over the inner lines. He silently cursed the magician who had drawn such a circle. It would have been easier to overlook the mistake, but Nathaniel knew that the slightest difference could bungle up a whole procedure. He rolled onto his side, drew his knees to his chest and assumed a curled-up position, the way he always would if he wanted to sleep in bed. A quick squint along…fine, he was nice and tidy now. Nice and ready.

But ready for what? A sudden burst of skepticism flooded him. This was nothing but another work of fiction, a ridiculous fancy. True, Ptolemaeus had succeeded, but from what Nathaniel had heard of him, he had been different: he had rejected each and every one of the magicians' views and prejudices; been interested in knowledge and spirits themselves, not in ways on how to subdue them. Compared to him, Nathaniel was nothing: an insignificant blot in the long line of masters, another cruel magician who enslaved and tortured the spirits. He wasn't different, like Ptolemy had been – he had followed the despicable road of typical magicians: power, wealth, fame, notoriety, etc. It was the height of arrogance to think that he could succeed where no one else had in two thousand years or more. What was he thinking? He and Ptolemy were as different magicians as fire and ice.

Unbidden, a distant memory flashed in his mind. A boarded up building, presumably a library… Bartimaeus, in Ptolemy's form, holding a burning ember in one hand… taunting, teasing him about his strange convulsion of conscience… speaking, talking, saying…

_I had another master like you once. He had the same mulish obstinacy, seldom acted in his own best interests. Didn't live long._

_I had another master like you once._

He closed his eyes. There it was. Nathaniel knew without question that the master Bartimaeus had meant was Ptolemy, and that he had been referred with Ptolemy as birds of the same feather. At the time he had thought that Bartimaeus was taunting him; now he felt that the words were the djinni's equivalent to praise – or even a realization. The djinni had likened him – Nathaniel, not Mandrake – to Ptolemy, and with this knowledge Nathaniel's decision was made. He would cross the Gate, he would find Bartimaeus. He knew how, he could do it. The question was – would it work?

There was only one way to find out.

He took a deep breath, and willed his muscles to relax. The room was very quiet – no sound came through the door. It was time to begin the summons.

He ran through the words of the reverse summons in his head, then – since to delay was merely to invite further fears – he spoke them aloud. As far as he could tell, it was all correct: he used his own name rater than a spirit's and swapped the normal verbs. He finished by calling Bartimaeus's name, three times.

Done.

He lay there in the quiet room.

Seconds passed. Nathaniel quelled his mounting frustration. No good being impatient. Conventional summonings needed time for the words to travel to the Other Place. He listened, though for what he did not know. His eyes were closed; his world was nothing but darkness and flickering brain-echoes of light.

Still nothing. Evidently the process was not going to work. Nathaniel's hopes passed away, leaving him with a hollow sort of feeling. He toyed with getting up, but the room was warm, he was comfortable on the pillow and was all too glad for a moment of rest after the privations of last night. His mind drifted on currents of its own devising: how the people were; what the commoners where doing; who was alive and who wasn't; whether Kitty had survived and taken the Staff already or not. He hoped that she was still alive.

A distant sound reached his ears, a clear bell ringing. The demons perhaps, or survivors trying to alert the city…

Kitty had tried to save him from Makepeace, and long before that she had saved him from the golem. True, they both had escaped with their lives, but she had risked getting killed just to try – and he didn't even deserve it. Yet she refused his thanks, saying that she had regretted it ever since and that _Bartimaeus _had prompted her to do it. Strange – if she was really as traitorous and violent as his magician views had made her out to be, then she would have demanded some sort of payback for his life debt. But she didn't. He didn't know what to make of her.

And then there was Bartimaeus. According to Kitty, it was the _djinni_ who had prompted her to save his life. His actions didn't make sense, unless… but that had been years ago, long before he had trapped it on Earth. Bartimaeus probably hated him now, and rightly so. Perhaps that was the problem – wouldn't a magician need the 'benevolent demon' to respond, to give permission for him to pass through the Gate? It was the spirit's domain, after all. Nathaniel felt his heart sinking. Kitty should have attempted this, not him – Bartimaeus was more likely to respond to _her_ call instead of his. But in the hallway, with Nouda…it had asked Nouda to spare _both _their lives, not only hers…Nathaniel felt hope rekindle in his chest. Perhaps things could be fixed between them. He suddenly remembered how he'd last seen the Bartimaeus, a forlorn shapeless mass of slime, worn down by weariness of the world. Perhaps it was better this way – wasn't it wrong to be pursuing him? Like anyone else, the djinni needed to rest.

Nathaniel grew gradually conscious of the continuously ringing bell. It had an odd sound, now he thought about it – high and pure, as if stuck on crystal, not low and booming as most bells in the city were. Also, rather than repeatedly ringing, it was a single continuous vibration that never faltered or varied, remaining slightly out of reach, right on the edge of his hearing. He strained to catch it… First it faded, then grew louder – though alluring, its character was still impossible to pin down; it was lost somewhere amid the pulsing of his blood, his quiet breathing, the little rasps of clothing as his chest went up and down. He tried again, suddenly fascinated. The ringing seemed somewhere above him, far away. He strove to listen, wishing he could draw closer to the source. He tried to block out all other sounds. His efforts paid off – little by little, then with a sudden rush, the ringing clarified, became unmuffled. He was alone with it. It rang perpetually, like something very precious on the verge of breaking. He felt that it was very close.

Was it visible, too? Nathaniel opened his eyes. A complex grid of stonework all around, little walls and floors running off in three dimensions, separating, joining, arching, ending. Among them were stairs, windows and open doors; he was passing through them at speed, both very close and somehow far away. Glancing down, he saw a youth's body curled up at a distance – something in the youth's face reminded him of a boy: child-like and innocent. Other figures were frozen, doll-like, all about the grid of stone – groups of men and women clustered closely, many lying prone, as if asleep or dead. Among them stood strange blurry things with uncertain outline – neither human nor completely otherwise. He could not distinguish their nature – each one seemed to almost cancel itself out. Below it all, in some remote corridor, he saw a girl fixed in a running posture, face turned over her shoulder; behind her was a figurine that _moved – _a man with a knife, legs going slowly, boots covering ground. And about them both, different shapes, remote and indistinct...

Nathaniel felt a certain detached curiosity about all this, but his real interest lay elsewhere. The ringing sound was louder than before; somewhere very close. He concentrated still harder and slightly to his surprise the pretty little latticework of stones and figures distorted and twisted out of focus, as if pulled in four directions at once. First it was quite clear, next it had blurred into a smudge; then even the smudge had gone.

Nathaniel felt a rushing on all sides; not a physical sensation, for he was not aware of having an actual body, but a conceptual one. Dimly he glimpsed four barriers around him: they towered above, plummeted below, stretched into eternity on either side. One was dark and solid, and threatened to crush him with its remorseless weight; next was a raging fluid, which surged avidly to carry him away. The third barrier tore at him with the force of an unseen tumult of a hurricane; the fourth was an implacable wall of unquenchable fire. All four beat down upon him for an instant only, and then they recoiled. With reluctance, they gave him up and Nathaniel passed through the Gate to the other side.

* * *

**Next chapter may be a bit boring, but as I say _-- try and bear with me_.It might just be more fruitful than expected.**

**As to those authors who need some encouragement with their own stories, and to those who are simply going great_: Keep going._****I might not mention your name here, but I know who you all are, and so do you. I mean, if a newbie like me who doesn't even have English as a first language can brazen it out, why not do the same? Don't mind what others say. Remember that no one can make you feel inferior unless you let them.( I have Malay as my first language, in case you wondered.)**

**_Jadi, teruskanlah usaha anda! _**(Malay for "So, continue your efforts!")**

**Thanks to Tane, again, for the typo thingy. If anyone finds others, do tell me.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Finally, an update. I would have done it sooner, but on Tuesday half of what I wrote was erased by a computer error. I had to rewrite it. Apologies to anyone who's been waiting (if there is even one) and please review.**

**Just a question, is Nathaniel in character, or is he too OOC -ish?**

**X**

**Chapter Two**

**The Last Alliance**

It was well for Nathaniel that he experienced what happened with the detachment of an observer, rather than as a helpless participant – if it had been otherwise, he would have immediately gone mad. As it was, the lack of bodily sensation gave what he saw a certain dreamlike quality. Curiosity was his main emotion.

He found himself in – well, in did not seem quite appropriate: he found himself _part _of a ceaseless swirl of movement, neither ending nor beginning, in which nothing was fixed or static. It was an infinite ocean of lights, colours and textures, perpetually forming, racing and dissolving in upon themselves, though the effect was neither as thick or solid as a liquid, nor as traceless as gas; if anything it was a combination of the two, in which fleeting wisps of substance endlessly parted and converged.

Scale and direction were impossible to determine, as was the passing of time – since nothing remained still and no patterns were ever repeated, the concept itself seemed blank and meaningless. This mattered little to Nathaniel, and it was only when he attempted to locate _himself_, with a view to establishing his position in his surroundings, that he grew slightly disconcerted. He had no fixed point, no singularity to call his own; indeed, he seemed often to be in several places at once, watching the whirling traces from multiple angles. The effect was most disorientating.

He tried to fix upon a particular fleck of colour and follow it, but found it no easier than following the motion of a single leaf in a distant windblown tree. As soon as it formed, each colour split, melted, merged with others; shrugged off the responsibility of being itself. Nathaniel grew dizzy with the looking.

To make matters worse he began to notice something else too, flicking in and out of existence within the general swirl – random images, so fleeting he could not pin them down – like photographs turned on and off by crackling electric light. He tried to work out what they were, but the movement was too fast. This filled him with frustration. He sensed they might have told him something.

After an unknown duration Nathaniel remembered that he had come here for a purpose, although _what_ that purpose was he could not recall. He had no inclination to _do_ anything particularly; his main impulse was to remain exactly as he was, moving among the rushing lights… he let himself melt into the raging chaos all around. It was a pleasurable feeling; he had hardly ever let himself relax like this: being a magician required an exhausting amount of self-control and detachment. Here, he was free to be himself – free to float around and do nothing, do everything –-

A rushing swirl of light raged about him – something about the ceaseless swirl of movement irritated him and kept him separate from it. He wanted to impose a little order, some solidity. But how could he do this when he lacked solidity himself?

Half-heartedly he willed himself to move towards a particular patch of orange and maroon swirling at an unknown distance. To his surprise, he moved all right, but in several discordant directions; when his vision stabilized, the patch of colour was no closer than before. He tried several times with the same result: his movements were veering and haphazard; it was impossible to predict the outcome.

For the first time Nathaniel felt a faint anxiety. He noted several patches of boiling darkness curling and uncurling among the lights; they stirred echoes of old earthbound fears – of nothingness and solitude, of being alone amid infinity.

_This is no good_, Nathaniel thought. _I need a body_.

With mounting disquiet, he watched the remorseless movement flowing all around, the images flickering near and far, the crackles of light and senseless trail of colour. One merry dancing blue-green coil caught his attention.

_Stand STILL!_ he thought furiously.

Was it his imagination, or had a little portion of the flowing coil deviated from its course, slowing for an instant? The motion was so quick, he could not be sure.

Nathaniel spied another random wisp; he willed it to halt and attend to him. The results were immediate and satisfactory: a **sizeable** tendril of matter solidified into something resembling the rolled tip of a fern frond, colourless and glassy. When he relaxed his attention, the coil unfurled and vanished back into the general swirl.

Nathaniel tried again, this time willing a patch of matter to form into a thicker, more compact object. Once more he had success, and by concentrating further was able to mould the glassy lump into something approaching a block, unevenly squared. Again, when he desisted, the block dissolved into nothing.

The malleability of substance all around reminded Nathaniel of something he had seen before. What was it? With difficulty, his mind grasped at a memory: that of the djinni Bartimaeus, changing form. He needed to occupy a shape of some kind when he came to Earth, though the choices were always fluid. Perhaps, now that the positions were reversed, he should do the same.

He could make himself a shape... And with this inspiration the object of his visit came back to him. Yes, it was Bartimaeus he had come to find.

Nathaniel's anxiety faded; he was enthused. He set to work straight away, building himself a body.

Unfortunately this was easier thought than done. He had no difficulty, by applying his will once more, in forming a patch of the flowing energies into something approximating a human shape. It had a bulbous head of sorts,a stumpy torso and four uneven limbs, all duly see-through, so that the rushing colours and lights behind showed distorted on its surfaces. But when Nathaniel tried to improve this rough marionette into something more refined and accurate, he discovered that he was unable to concentrate on it all at once. While he shaped and evened out the legs, the head slumped like melted butter; when he hastened to repair this, the lower half sagged and began to dissipate. He eventually gave up on repairing it, and experimented with moving it instead. It proved overly complex to manouevre. Although he was able to direct it back and forth - it floated amongst the raging energies like a bird amid a storm - Nathaniel found he could not individually direct its limbs. While he struggled to do so, the body's substance dribbled away from its extremities, like thread unravelling from a spindle. After a time Nathaniel gave up in disgust and allowed the figure to dissolve.

An idea entered his mind. On Earth, magicians used pentacles - circles - to restrict spirits. Nathaniel had never quite figured out why - he had assumed that circles were used because of its completeness and balance. He tried making a simple ball of swirling matter. It was far stronger and easier to maintain: with it he progressed a considerable distance, floating serenely through the chaos.

_Lack of limbs is the key,_ Nathaniel thought._ A sphere is good. It imposes order._

The shape certainly had _some_effects on his surroundings, since it was not long before Nathaniel began to notice a slight change in the fabric through which his ball was passing. Up until then the coils of colou, the shimmering lights, the intermittent images had all been entirely neutral and unresponsive, flowing randomly where they would. But now - perhaps because of the new decisiveness with which he maintained the sphere - they seemed to become more aware of his presence. He sensed it in the movement of the swirls, which suddenly became more definite, intentional. They began to change direction slightly, darting in close to the ball, then veering away as if in doubt. Time and again this happened, with the coils and flickers growing steadily in size and number. They seemed merely inquisitive, but it was an ominous kind of attention, like sharks gathering about a swimmer, and Nathaniel didn't like it. He slowed his ball's progress, and with a careful exertion of will - he was now gaining in confidence - imposed himself upon the whirling substance. Taking the static sphere as his centre, he drove outwards, pushing back the nearest intrepid coils, which dissolved and scattered.

The remission this provided was short-lived. Just as Nathaniel felt a surge of triumph on his strength of purpose, a sudden galssy coil extended out from the main mass like an amoeba's pseupodium and bit into the edge of his sphere, carrying off a chunk. As he strove to make good the damage, another coil darted in from the opposite side and took another slice. Furiously he beat the coils back. The main mass all about him pulsed and quivered. Lights flickered intently in random clusters. For the first time, Nathaniel felt afraid.

_Bartimaeus_, he thought. _Where are you?_

The words seemed to conjure a reaction in the substance; a sudden burst of static images fired and faded, stronger and more lingering than ever before. One or two lasted long enough for him to catch details: figures, faces, random snatches of sky, once a definite building - a roof with figures were human but wore unfamiliar styles of clothes. The fleeting pictures reminded Nathaniel of past occasions, when long-forgotten memories rose unbidden into his mind. But these were not _his_ memories.

As if in response to this thought, a sudden burst of activity far out in the whirling confusion ended with an image that _did_linger. It was fractured, as if seen through the lens of a broken camera, but what it showed was clear enough: the Underwoods, standing side by side. As he watched, Mrs Underwood beamed fondly at him, the way she used to when he had done or said something that pleased her. Her mouth opened; she said:

_Nathaniel! Come back, dear._

_Go away..._Nathaniel reacted with confusion and dismay. It was a trick, obviously it was, but that didn't make it palatable, and it didn't mean he wasn't shocked and disorientated by the sight of her face, purposely buried and hidden in the depths of his mind. His concentration wavered; his hold over his sphere and its single area of cleared order lurched and trembled. The sphere slumped and sagged; coils of matter came in from every side.

_We love you, dear._

_Go away -- Leave me alone! _With every ounce of effort he could muster, he drove the coils back again. The image winked out. With grim determination, Nathaniel returned his sphere to its proper shape. He was increasingly dependent on it for any semblance of control, for any semblance of being _himself._ More than anything he feared being adrift without it.

Other pictures flashed off and on, each one different, most too fast to fathom. Some, though barely, perceptible, must have been familiar to him - they awoke inarticulate feelings that he had tried to bury long ago, feelings of loss and despair. A flurry of lights; another picture, very far away. A lady of indeterminate age, sitting with a pen and a sketchbook in her hands. Behind her was a magnificent statue of a man with gigantic sideburns, looking imperious and powerful.

_Well?_ said the lady's soothing voice. _Are you going to put something, or is it going to draw itself?_

_Ms. Lutyens..._

The figure looked at him, smiling... and the vision was gone. Almost immediately another image appeared - a house on fire; a jackal-headed creature rising in the flames..a flash of white. Nathaniel concentrated his energies on the sphere. Ignore them. They were nothing but phantasms, black and empty. They meant nothing.

_Bartimaeus!_ Again he thought the name, beseechingly this time. Again it awoke activity among the floating lights and drifting spurs of colours. Close up, with crystal clarity, came the image of his erstwhile master Underwood, frowning severely.

_You were always too impatient, boy. Just give up already, why don't you? Come and join us. It's better than the fate that awaits you on Earth._

_What fate?_ he couldn't help but ask.

_You shall see, foolish boy. You are not as you once were._

Another image appeared alongside, a tall man with dark skin standing on a grassy hill. His face was grave.

_Why do you come here and molest us?_

A woman wearing a high white head-dress, gathering water at a well.

_You were a fool to come here. You are not welcome._

_I came for help._

_You will not get it._ The woman's image scowled and vanished.

The man with dark skin turned to walk up his hill.

_Why do you molest us?_ he asked again, over his shoulder._ You wound us with your presence._A flicker of lights; he too was gone.

Arthur Underwood gave a rueful grin.

_Give up, magician. Forget yourself. You cannot get home in any case._

_I won't. I _will _get home._

_No. You are nothing now. _A dozen coils enveloped him; he crackled and fizzed into a multitude of whirling shards that floated far away.

_Nothing..._ Nathaniel regarded his ball, which during his recent inattention had melted away like snow. Little flakes were fluttering off what remained off its surface; as if blown by a wind, they skipped and danced across to join the endless whirl about him. Well, it was true, of course - he really _was_ nothing: a being without substance, without anchorage. There wasn't any point in pretending otherwise.

And they were right about another thing too: he didn't know how to get home.

Well, that was it, then. After all, since when had he ever regarded anything as his own home?There was only once: the Underwood's house, where he had been loved and cared for by Mrs Underwood. And maybe before that, with his own parents - though he could not remember them or anything related to them anymore; his birthname being the single reminder of an existence before Mandrake and young Underwood. Maybe he had been loved, maybe not. He did not remember, and so should not care.

His will faded. He allowed the sphere to dwindle; it spun like a top, streaming into nothing. Nobody would have any regrets about this - he would be just another casualty among the magicians, tose of whom had brought their own fates to themselves. He began to drift...

Another image flickered into view.

_Why are you here?_

_Leave me alone._

_Not a chance. I want to know exactly what you want, Mandrake._

**_To be continued..._**

**And so ends what I'm sure you all regard as the dullest chapter.**

**As a note, anything I write within this week will probably be all you get until June - from me, that is. I have exams coming up and will thus be banned from touching the keyboard. So do me favour and make sure when I get back there'll be lots of updates - _lots_ of them - and maybe some reviews for me? .. Hopefully...**

**Ggh. I never realized how much of a bore it is to type. Maybe this will be my last update in a very long while ( or posibbly forever ).**

**Then again, maybe not.**

**Remember what I asked about reviews?**


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